The Life of Percy Bysshe Shelley - PowerPoint Presentation

Slide1

The Life of Percy Bysshe ShelleySlide2

1792Percy Bysshe Shelley BornPercy Bysshe Shelley is born in Horsham, England. He is the first of seven children of the Whig Parliamentarian Sir Timothy Shelley and his wife Elizabeth

Pilfold

Shelley.

1804

Enrolls

at Eton

Shelley

begins his studies at Eton College, the boys' boarding school. He is mercilessly bullied by his classmates for his eccentric ways and dainty appearance.

Apr

10, 1810

Enrolls at Oxford

Shelley

enrolls at University College, Oxford. He is indifferent toward his studies and barely attends class. Instead he writes, publishing his first novel,

Zastrozzi

, and books of suggestive poetry

.

Apr 25, 1811

Expelled

from Oxford

Shelley

is expelled from Oxford after he publishes and distributes his essay "The Necessity of Atheism." His father is furious

.Slide3

Aug 28, 1811Marriage

Shelley

runs off to Scotland with a 16-year-old student named Harriet Westbrook. Though he does not love Westbrook and disapproves of the idea of marriage, he likes the idea of "

moulding

a really noble soul into all that can make its nobleness useful and lovely."34

1813

Queen

Mab

Shelley

self-publishes the long poem Queen

Mab

. The poem is an allegory for Shelley's political ideals.

Jun 23,

1813

Daughter

Born

Percy and Harriet Shelley's daughter

Ianthe

is born.

Mar 1814

Meets

Mary

Godwin

Shelley begins spending time at the home of the anarchist political philosopher William Godwin, whose ideas he admires. He meets Godwin's 16-year-old daughter Mary. Though Harriet is expecting their second child, he and Mary fall in love.Slide4

Jul 1814Elopes With GodwinPercy Shelley and Mary Godwin elope to Europe, accompanied by Godwin's stepsister Claire

Clairmont

. They spend six weeks touring the continent

.

Sep 13, 1814

Returns to London

Percy

Shelley returns to London with Claire

Clairmont

and his pregnant girlfriend Mary Godwin. The couple is forced to live apart while Shelley goes into hiding to escape his creditors. During his time in hiding he writes the poem

Alastor

.

Nov 30, 1814

Son Born

Harriet Westbrook gives birth to Percy Shelley's second child, a son named Charles

.

Feb 22, 1815

First

Daughter with Mary

Godwin

Mary Godwin gives birth to the couple's first child, a daughter named Clara. The baby is two months premature and dies only a few weeks after birth.Slide5

Jan 24, 1816Son BornMary Godwin gives birth to the couple's second child, William.

Jun

1816

Summer in

Switzerland

The

Shelleys

take a summer holiday in Switzerland with Claire

Clairmont

, who is pregnant with the child of poet Lord Byron. Byron and Shelley become close friends. During the trip, Mary Godwin begins her novel Frankenstein.

Oct 9,

1816

Fanny Godwin

Dies

Mary Godwin's half-sister Fanny Imlay Godwin commits suicide with an overdose of laudanum.

Dec

1816

Shelley's Wife

Dies

Shelley's wife Harriet Westbrook commits suicide by throwing herself into London's Serpentine River. She was pregnant with the couple's third child. Courts refuse to grant Shelley custody of his children with Harriet because of his unorthodox views.Slide6

Dec 30, 1816MarriagePercy Bysshe Shelley and a pregnant Mary Godwin marry at St. Mildred's Church in London. They settle in the village of Marlow in southeast England. Soon after, Shelley meets and befriends the poet John Keats.

May 14,

1817

Daughter

Born

Mary Shelley gives birth to the couple's third child, a daughter named Clara

Everina

.

1818

The

Shelleys

Publish

Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein is published on New Year's Day to immediate success. Shelley publishes the poems The Revolt of Islam and

Ozymandias

.

Mar

1818

Travels to

Italy

The

Shelleys

travel to in Italy in order to convince Lord Byron to give his estranged lover Claire

Clairmont

access to their child. They remain in Italy for several years.

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Sep 24, 1818Daughter Dies

Clara

Everina

contracts dysentery and dies in Italy.

Jun 7, 1819

Son Dies

The

Shelleys

' three-year-old son William dies of malaria in Italy. The

Shelleys

now have no living children, though Mary is pregnant with their fourth.

Nov 12,

1819

Son Born

The

Shelleys

move to Florence. Mary Shelley gives birth to the couple's son Percy Florence, the only one of their children to outlive his parents. Percy Shelley writes the poems The Masque of Anarchy and Men of England.

1820

Prometheus

Unbound

Shelley publishes the play Prometheus Unbound, an imaginative drama depicting the torture of the mythological figure Prometheus by Zeus.

Feb

23,

1821

Elegy for Keats

John

Keats dies of tuberculosis at the age of 26. Shelley writes the poem

Adonais

as an elegy for him.Slide8

Jul 8, 1822Percy Bysshe Shelley DiesPercy

Shelley drowns in the Gulf of Spezia while sailing with a friend. A devastated Mary Shelley has his body cremated.

1824

Shelley's

Poems Halted

Mary

Shelley begins editing a book of her late husband's poems for publication. She is forced to stop when her father-in-law threatens to cut off support to her and her son unless she pledges never to publish any of his son's works during his lifetime

.Slide9

Romantic Poets

-

Nature

-Romantic poets view nature in an almost spiritual manner. Many of their poems are about nature.

-Curiosity

-Romantic poets were always extremely curious by the world around them and were always questioning everything. -Imagination -Along with curiosity, Romantic poets were also very imaginative with their poems. Many of their poems were similar to myths .Slide10

Analzyed Poem I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers,

From the seas and the streams;

I bear light shade for the leaves when laid

In their noonday dreams.

From my wings are shaken the dews that waken

The sweet buds every one,

When rocked to rest on their mother's breast,

As she dances about the sun.

I wield the flail of the lashing hail, And whiten the green plains under,And then again I dissolve it in rain, And laugh as I pass in thunder.I sift the snow on the mountains below, And their great pines groan aghast;And all the night 'tis my pillow white, While I sleep in the arms of the blast.Sublime on the towers of my skiey bowers, Lightning, my pilot, sits;In a cavern under is fettered the thunder, It struggles and howls at fits;Slide11

Over earth and ocean, with gentle motion, This pilot is guiding me,Lured by the love of the genii that move In the depths of the purple sea;

Over the rills, and the crags, and the hills,

Over the lakes and the plains,

Wherever he dream, under mountain or stream,

The Spirit he loves remains;

And I all the while bask in Heaven's blue smile,

Whilst he is dissolving in rains.

The sanguine Sunrise, with his meteor eyes,

And his burning plumes outspread,Leaps on the back of my sailing rack, When the morning star shines dead;As on the jag of a mountain crag, Which an earthquake rocks and swings,An eagle alit one moment may sit In the light of its golden wings.And when Sunset may breathe, from the lit sea beneath, Its ardors of rest and of love,And the crimson pall of eve may fall From the depth of Heaven above,With wings folded I rest, on mine aery nest, As still as a brooding dove.

That orbed maiden with white fire laden,Slide12

Whom mortals call the Moon,Glides glimmering o'er my fleece-like floor, By the midnight breezes strewn;And wherever the beat of her unseen feet,

Which only the angels hear,

May have broken the woof of my tent's thin roof,

The stars peep behind her and peer;

And I laugh to see them whirl and flee,

Like a swarm of golden bees,

When I widen the rent in my wind-built tent,

Till the calm rivers, lakes, and seas,

Like strips of the sky fallen through me on high, Are each paved with the moon and these.I bind the Sun's throne with a burning zone, And the Moon's with a girdle of pearl;The volcanoes are dim, and the stars reel and swim When the whirlwinds my banner unfurl.From cape to cape, with a bridge-like shape, Over a torrent sea,Sunbeam-proof, I hang like a roof,-- The mountains its columns be.The triumphal arch through which I march With hurricane, fire, and snow,

When the Powers of the air are chained to my chair,

Is the million-colored bow;

The sphere-fire above its soft colors wove,

While the moist Earth was laughing below.Slide13

I am the daughter of Earth and Water, And the nursling of the Sky;I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores; I change, but I cannot die.

For after the rain when with never a stain

The pavilion of Heaven is bare,

And the winds and sunbeams with their convex gleams

Build up the blue dome of air,

I silently laugh at my own cenotaph,

And out of the caverns of rain,

Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb,

I arise and unbuild it again. Slide14

ExplanationI think one of the most common literary devices Shelley used was similes and the personification of nature that added great detail to each poem. For example Shelley says “From cape to cape, with a bridge-like shape”. Which is just one of the many examples of the way Percy Shelley used similes to help the reader clearly picture the scenes he had set up in his poems? He also used Rhyming patterns to help the poem have a better flow and would sound better

. Slide15

PoemsA Bridal SongI.

The golden gates of Sleep unbar

Where Strength and Beauty, met together,

Kindle their image like a star

In a sea of glassy weather!

Night, with all thy stars look down,--

Darkness, weep thy holiest dew,--

Never smiled the inconstant moon

On a pair so true.Let eyes not see their own delight;--Haste, swift Hour, and thy flight Oft renew.II.Fairies, sprites, and angels, keep her!Holy stars, permit no wrong!And return to wake the sleeper,Dawn,—ere it be long! O joy! O fear! what will be doneIn the absence of the sun!Come along!Slide16

DEATH:For my dagger is bathed in the blood of the brave,I come, care-worn tenant of life, from the grave,

Where Innocence sleeps '

neath

the peace-giving sod,

And the good cease to tremble at Tyranny's nod;

I offer a calm habitation to thee,--

Say, victim of grief, wilt thou slumber with me?

My mansion is damp, cold silence is there,

But it lulls in oblivion the fiends of despair;Not a groan of regret, not a sigh, not a breath,Dares dispute with grim Silence the empire of Death.I offer a calm habitation to thee,--Say, victim of grief, wilt thou slumber with me?MORTAL:Mine eyelids are heavy; my soul seeks repose,It longs in thy cells to embosom its woes,It longs in thy cells to deposit its load, Where no longer the scorpions of Perfidy goad,--Where the phantoms of Prejudice vanish away,And Bigotry's bloodhounds lose scent of their prey.Yet tell me, dark Death, when thine empire is o'er,What awaits on Futurity's mist-covered shore?

DEATH:

Cease, cease, wayward Mortal! I dare not unveil

The shadows that float o'er Eternity's vale;

Nought

waits for the good but a spirit of Love,

That will hail their blest advent to regions above.

For Love, Mortal, gleams through the gloom of my sway,

And the shades which surround me fly fast at its ray.

Hast thou loved?--Then depart from these regions of hate,

And in slumber with me blunt the arrows of fate.

I offer a calm habitation to thee.--

Say, victim of grief, wilt thou slumber with me?

MORTAL:

Oh! sweet is thy slumber! oh! sweet is the ray

Which after thy night introduces the day;

How concealed, how persuasive, self-interest’s breath,

Though it floats to mine ear from the bosom of Death!

I hoped that I quite was forgotten by all,

Yet a lingering friend might be grieved at my fall,

And duty forbids, though I languish to die,

When departure might heave Virtue’s breast with a sigh.

O Death! O my friend! snatch this form to thy shrine,

And I fear, dear destroyer, I shall not repine.Slide17

A DirgeRough wind, that moanest loud

Grief too sad for song;

Wild wind, when sullen cloud

Knells all the night long;

Sad storm whose tears are vain,

Bare woods, whose branches strain,

Deep caves and dreary main,--

Wail, for the world’s wrong!